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When Arsenal Played Long Island

The announcement of the New York Cosmos’ bid for a soccer stadium as part of the Elmont Town Crossings project at Belmont Park, along with their return to play at Hofstra’s Shuart Stadium in the North American Soccer League fall season, brings Long Island’s Nassau County — long a hotbed for youth soccer — back into play as a potential host for high-profile international friendlies.

New Yorkers have grown accustomed to the summer visits of world soccer’s best clubs, with the likes of Manchester United, Chelsea, Barcelona, Real Madrid, Juventus and Roma all having played recently in the area. The most notable absentee from a list of the world’s most popular clubs to cash in with a game in the New York market is Arsenal of England’s Premier League. Each year Gooners (as fans of the north London team are called) are disappointed to see their club opt to spend preseason training in Europe or, as with this past year, visit Asia instead of coming to the United States.

The last time Arsenal played in the United States was Aug. 6, 1989, when it beat Independiente of Argentina, 2-1. David Rocastle scored both Arsenal goals before an announced crowd of 10,042 in Miami. The small crowd was “sort of a shame,” said the Arsenal club historian Ian Cook. “We were English champions” that year.

Arsenal’s fan base in the U.S. has grown exponentially since, and the American presence behind the scenes (starting with the director and majority shareholder Stan Kroenke) makes a visit from the Gunners seem both obvious and overdue. Interest in Arsenal has grown worldwide since the explosion of coverage via cable television and the Internet, especially since Arsène Wenger took over as its manager in 1996, so few American Gooners can recall, much less be blamed, for the poor turnout in 1989.

Arsenal’s large fan base in New York has had to content itself with cheering the club’s greatest goal scorer, Thierry Henry, wearing the shirt of the New York Red Bulls, or booing their archrivals, Tottenham Hotspur, who have visited Red Bull Arena twice in the past three years.

Few know that Arsenal has played in New York before, when it faced the New York Express in an indoor soccer friendly before a crowd of more than 8,000 at Nassau Coliseum on Jan. 24, 1986. According to Cook, there is “no mention in Arsenal records of first-team matches” of the game. Still, the Arsenal roster that night featured future Rocastle, Paul Merson, Michael Thomas, and Mr. Arsenal himself, Tony Adams.

Despite the talent, the visitors lost to the Express, 7-5, themselves playing their first game as a club.

“Arsenal had never played indoors, they had never played on synthetic, and they were young, those guys then,” said Shep Messing, a familiar face in goal for New York from his days with the Cosmos and Arrows. “I’m not sure how many first-team Arsenal players played in that game, but they were a mixture of young players and their real team.”

Messing was serving double duty that night, since as president/general manager of the fledgling Express, he had invited Arsenal. “I said, ‘You guys get over to New York and we’ll play a game at the Nassau Coliseum.’ I think we split the gate, but there was no guaranteed fee. Nobody knew Arsenal in New York in 1986.”

Terry Burton coached the Arsenal reserves that season and led the team in New York. Although he left a year later, he returned to Arsenal this past summer, in the same job as reserves and head development coach, after 25 years away from the club. Burton fondly recalls a “fantastic trip,” with some players who “went on to become household names.” Despite their talent, Burton cites the unique and unfamiliar rules of American indoor soccer as a factor in the game’s outcome. “It was pretty new to us, the rolling-on subs and the changing-up,” he said.

While many of the Arsenal players who lost that night went on to glory, the opening win was not a sign of things to come for the Express, the third and final attempt for the old Major Indoor Soccer League to gain a foothold in New York, after the Arrows and Cosmos. Despite their start with wins against Arsenal and Sporting Lisbon in exhibitions that winter at Nassau Coliseum, they fared far worse when league play began in the fall, losing their first 10 games and posting a 3-23 record before folding at the all-star break, unable to complete the 1986-87 M.I.S.L. season.

David Kilpatrick is associate professor in the School of Liberal Arts at Mercy College in Dobbs Ferry, N.Y. He writes the blog Soccer Off Broadway. Follow him on Twitter @DrDKilpatrick.

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Goal, The New York Times soccer blog, will report on news and features from the world of soccer and around the Web. Times editors and reporters will follow international tournaments and provide analysis of games. There will be interviews with players, coaches and notable soccer fans, as well as a weekly blog column by Red Bulls forward Jozy Altidore. Readers can discuss Major League Soccer, foreign leagues and other issues with fellow soccer fans.